Forgotten Faces
by FreckledNerdyBirdy
Summary: Knuckles is getting married and his wedding is in two weeks. But will old faces and an old ememy make him think other wise? Teen to be safe.
1. Prologue

Finally! After two years of being a member of I finally figured out how to post stories on here. This is my first story so please no flames, I want this to be a positive experience.

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Forgotten Faces: Prologue

It was a warm and still night. The moon shone brightly, casting dark shadows from the few shrubs and small trees scattered upon the dry and barren landscape. There wasn't even a slight breeze blowing through the trees; the crickets weren't even chirping which added onto the mysterious silence that crawled through the night. But what was more mysterious was the small fortress resigning in the center of a large clearing that was hundreds of miles away from the nearest source of water or civilization. It contained two tiny buildings that were so old that they didn't seem to have electricity. A couple of tents were posted along the buildings and surrounding the area was a tall chain link fence with barbed wire at the top. The little camp appears to be abandoned but, hiding in the shadows are two figures standing still as stone.

A cloud covers the glow of the moon, shrouding everything in darkness. The sound of dirt being flung, the brushing of bodies against the chain fence, and the soft pit pat of feet is heard. Two minutes later the moon is reveled and the only signs of the figures existence are their footprints and a hole under the fence.

The two characters reached the safety of the bushes on the edge of the clearing just the moon was reveled. They kept to the shadows trying to avoid the moon light as much a possible. The taller silhouette muttered to it's self about being in hiking boots instead of moccasins and leaving a clear trail of their escape. This caused the smaller one to stop, twitched its large ears, and glance back at it's partner. In an agitated and tired voice it replied," Well at least you have shoes on; I'm having to watch where I place my bare feet!"

The two soon came to the edge of the gully; the shorter shadow broke in to a running pace and jumped clear across to the other side with little trouble. The taller one hesitated at the other's actions. "Come on! Hurry! Before they find out that we're gone!" the other cried in a whisper. With out wasting time the figure sprung forward only to miss the other side and slide down to the bottom of the gully. A loud thud was heard as the little one peered down and called "Mom. Mom! Are you okay?" "Yea, I'm just fine," came growling from the bottom. "Hey mom, how much time do you think we have until they discover we're gone?" The little girl's mother replied," Knowing them…….. probably not much," as she grabbed onto roots and rocks climbing her way up. The daughter stood up, staring back at the camp and admired how far they had gotten away. Suddenly a pair of hands grabbed her and caused her to snap out of her trance. She let out a strangled yelp only to have a hand cover her mouth. "Ssshhhhh! It's me! What are you doing standing up, they're gonna see you! But it was too late, the lights came on in the tents and soon shadowy silhouettes were running around the camp. "Oh JUST GREAT! THEY FOUND THE HOLE!"

The mother quickly released her daughter and both dashed in the direction away from the camp. Both ran blindly scrapping against shrubs while bumping into each other. A scream of pain rang into the still night. The younger one quickly spun around to see that her mother had tripped over a log a few yards back. "Mother get up!" "I can't I sprained my ankle. Quick darl'n, ran as fast as you can to town and get help!" "But, but mom…." She felt tears coming to her eyes as she watched her mom and started to run away. "Keep running and don't look back DON'T LOOK BACK!" She screamed to her until she only saw a cloud of dust disappearing in the distance.

Two cloaked shadows approached her. "Hurry we have to catch the little one," shouted the first one but was stopped by his partner. "Save your energy, no one is going to find out. There's no water out there for miles, the buzzards will be picking her bones by morning." He bent down to pick up the body on the ground who had blacked out a few seconds earlier.

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So what do ya think?


	2. Wedding Plans

Second chapter is up. Knuckles is suppose to be 24, Rouge is 25, and Lara-Le is in her 50s.

Disclaimer: I don't own Knuckles, Rouge, and Lara-Le

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Wedding Plans

"Mom quick, get up!"

" Huh, who, what, when, where…….what the?" Knuckles jerked wide awake searching for the origin of the girl's cry but realized it was only a dream. He looked around at his surroundings and remembered he was still sitting outside with Rouge at the sidewalk café. "Hhhmmm must have dozed off. Wait! How the heck could I have dozed off if I've had three cups of pure black coffee!" he grumbled to himself as he reached for a bagel, dunked it in his coffee and crammed it in his mouth.

He looked across the table and notice Rouge hadn't caught him dozing off. "Good," he thought "If she found out that I wasn't paying attention, I'd never hear the end of it." Rouge would every now and then pick up her teacup and take a sip or two but her complete concentration was focused on a magazine showing the new styles in wedding dresses. A gold ring glittered on her fourth finger. Knuckles smiled, it had been four weeks ago that he had proposed to her and here they were, two weeks from their wedding making the final decisions. Here he was at the age of twenty-four and life was just prefect. After all the years of helping Sonic save the world, Knuckles received great recognition along with a big bundle of cash. After defeating Eggman for the ... oh who knows how many times they stopped him, the evil, genius scientist finally retreated to his base and had not come out for…….. was it three years? No. no. Maybe it had only been two, Knuckles couldn't remember. But with the disappearance of Eggman the Sonic gang could breathe easily although Sonic was still suspicious that Eggman was cooking up the ultimate dooms day device or something along those lines. Not having to be overly protective of the master emerald, or what he now called it "the stupid rock", Knuckles donated it to a museum where it was watched by security twenty-four seven. Yes life was great, all of his friends were settling down and living their dreams; and yet he was sad, he missed all of the adventures he use to go on and the action he took part in.

"Honey what did you think about this one?" His thoughts were interrupted.

"Huh"

"Knuckles I asked what you thought about this one." Rouge pointed to a black wedding dress the truly didn't look appropriate for the occasion.

Not wanting to make her mad but at the same time say no he replied," A black wedding dress Rouge? Come on people are going to think their at a depressing funeral instead of a happy wedding. Why don't you want to wear a white dress? Right then he knew he should of have shut his mouth because Rouge looked like she going to strangle him.

"White! Knuckles I have white fur if I wear a white dress I'm going to look like a living snowman!" Rouge practically yelled at him.

"Well………gulp how about a pink dress or yellow, maybe baby blue?" Knuckles was starting to run out of excuses. Rouge sighed," Let's just skip the dress for a while and decide on the bride's maids."

"I thought you already chose Sally, Amy, and Cream for that."

"I did? Well that one thing off the list."

"Okay……… and your parents are coming right?"

"Yes and yours are coming, right Knuckles?"

"Well er…….. I haven't talked to my mother in years and my father and I don't really see eye to eye." Rouge frowned," You know I'm going to have to meet them sooner or later."

"Yes, but……….."

"Call your mother right now"

"What! Right here, now!"

"You heard me."

Knuckles sighed and pulled out his cell phone and began searching for the number. He hadn't used it for years but he always kept it in the back for some unknown reason. " Please, please don't answer," he prayed. The phone began dialing. It kept ringing for a while and he was just about to tell Rouge that she wasn't home when he heard a familiar voice on the other end.

"Hello?" Knuckles didn't answer.

"Hello?"

Slowly he started," Is this Lara-Le?"

"Yes, may I ask who is calling?"

"This is Knuckles your"

"Knuckles! Oh my baby! My baby boy finally called his poor old mother after all these years!" Knuckles mother was shouting so loud over the phone that he had to jerk it away from his ear so he wouldn't go deaf, Rouge just smiled.

"Oh Knuckles it's great to hear from you!"

"Eh it's great to hear from you too mom. I'll just cut to the chase, I getting married in two weeks so I just called to tell you that."

The screaming over the phone just got louder. "Oh my son is getting married! Well come on down here and let me meet her!"

"Well mom you see……" He was cut off as Rouge snatched the phone from him and replied in the receiver," We'll be there tomorrow." Knuckles was horror struck as he stared at his future wife, but before he could open his mouth to protest Rouge cut him off. "Pack your bags. We're leaving first thing tomorrow morning for Australia."


	3. Knuckles I Think You just Hit a Kid

Were ya'll think'n I wan't going to continue this story? Sorry for such a long delay, I've been working on my other fic, my Cars fic, and it's been taking up most of my writing time. School is the main issue but I got a pet cockatiel and I've been devoting most of my time to him, so that's why it took so long.

I been wanting to write this chapter for 3 years and it's finally here, I started typing this back in October but as I said earlier I've been working on my other fic. Also I've been doing research for this fic. Kookynie is a real town in Western Australia along with Kalgoorlie, so I didn't make them up. Other research I did was on Knuckles the Echidna comics by Archie. I'm not very famiar with it but that's where the characters are coming from.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except Sosha. Everyone else belongs to Archie Universe.

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Knuckles I Think You just hit a Kid 

The next morning went fairly easy. Knuckles was just praying and hoping that something would go wrong, like his alarm clock wouldn't go off, or traffic to the airport would be heavy making them miss their flight. But what he really hoped most of all was that the flight would be canceled. But to his disappointment the alarm when off, Rouge was waiting for him at the entrance of his apartment, amazingly on time, there was no traffic, and the plane was on schedule.Knuckles stared out his window on the plane, 'This is going to be a long trip.'

Their flight ended at Kalgoorlie airport where they rent a jeep and headed up north into the outback. Normally Knuckles would have liked to run rather than drive but this was the Gibson Desert and it wasn't known for being hospitable. Also Rouge's luggage would be a nightmare to lug around.

"How much farther?" asked Knuckles,

"Uh let's see," Rouge gazed down on the map, "Kookynie is 200km north of Kalgoorlie and we've been driving for," she stared down at her watch, "it shouldn't be much further."

Knuckles frowned, they were getting closer, there was no turning back now, he'd have to face the music. 'This is really strange; we haven't run into any problems on this trip at all.'

Rouge noticed the sudden change in atmosphere hugged him. "It's okay, your family won't scare me," she smiled. His eyes looked at her and sighed, "I'm not worried about them, what I'm worried about is"

**BAMM!**

Rouge let out a high pitch scream. Knuckles snapped his attention back to the road and immediately hit the brakes. As the red dust settled Rouge gasped, "Knuckles, I think you just hit a kid." The echidna gave a slight jump before charging out of the vehicle over to the poor creature. Knuckles stopped a few feet away from what Rouge had said was a kid but honestly he had no idea what it truly was. He cautiously bent over the little creature; it was a mammal, some sort of cat he guessed. It had brown fur with an orange and red tint, its ears were black with black hairs protruding out at the tips; it had a white chin with two black lines running on each side of the nose toward the eyes. The tail wasn't long like most cats yet it wasn't a bobtail, it was medium sized. The cat had on worn out leather gloves, dusty blue jeans, a yellow tee-shirt, and an unbuttoned red plaid collar shirt over the yellow. There were no shoes on its feet which revealed black calluses.

Rouge walked and shuttered, "Poor thing, is it still alive?" Knuckles looked down again, sure enough the cat was shallowly breathing with its eyes still shut. He gently gathered it up in his arms and headed back for the jeep.

"Is at a boy or a girl?" questioned Rouge

"I think it's a boy by the way it's dres…….." Knuckles sentence was cut off short when he saw one of the cat's eyes manage a squint before losing consciousness again. He had only caught a glimpse of its eye but it chilled him to the bone. It was deep purple like his. Knuckles had gotten the delay he wanted he had a bad feeling about this feline.

"We need to get him to a doctor, the condition looks bad," stated Rouge. Knuckles nodded before sitting back behind.

The couple reached the out skirts of Kookynie ten minutes after their ordeal. "I don't see a doctor's office anywhere," said Rouge while inspecting the town. Knuckles stuck his head of the jeep window looking at an old house with a medical sign swinging on chains. The building was slowly deteriorating, the paint was bleached, and a few shingles and planks were missing here and there but it was still in good shape, the porch looked like it could still support weight. Rouge continued in astonishment, "This is where the doctor works? Where's the hospital?"

Knuckles parked and hopped out, "For a town this big it's amazing that there is a doctor," in a stern voice. He carefully lifted the kid out of the back and carried it up the porch steps and gave a hard knock on the door. A loud bang came from the screen door as it broke off its hinges and crashed to the floor.

_oops_

Inside the house the sound of hollering could be heard and the volume grew as the source got closer to the door. "YOU VARMETS BETTER FIX THAT OR THERE'LL BE HELL TO PAY!" An angry, old echidna slammed the thick, oak door open while wielding a fireplace shovel. Rouge and Knuckles stared in shock. "Well, what do ya'll want!" he grouched. With shaken arms Knuckles held the child up to what he figured to be the doctor. The old, man dropped the utensil and quickly took the cat into his arms, then disappear inside the house. Knuckles followed but Rouge stayed glued to the floor. She didn't see that coming but the doctor's behavior wasn't what spooked her, what did was his appearance. He looked just like Knuckles but much older and had a white beard. 'Maybe coming hear wasn't such a great idea.'

Inside the doc placed the kitten on his kitchen counter since his table was over flowing with paperwork. He observed its pulse and breathing as Knuckles entered the room.

"Where did you find her?" asked the doc without looking up.

Knuckles's mind went blank for a moment, "Uh we found her 20 miles out of town, wait her? It's a girl?"

The elder nodded, "Yes, I actually know this girl, her name is Sosha, and I do yearly checkups on her. So did you find her lying on the side of the road?"

"Well we had an accident," replied Rouge who had just walked in, "we accidentally hit him with our jeep."

"Her," corrected Knuckles in a soft whisper.

The doctor's head shot up and faced Knuckles. Knuckles held up his hands in defense, "Honestly I didn't see her coming!"

Rouge noticed the sudden tenseness in the room. Wanting to direct the attention back to the patient she began, "So is………… she going to be all right?"

The old echidna settled down and rubbed his temples, "She's going to be alright but," he gently pulled on some skin on the cat's arm which stretched easily, "she's very dehydrated. But Sosha is a Caracal, a cat from the Middle East deserts, so I'm not too worried. Also this isn't the first time she has been hit by a moving vehicle. But I do advise you not to hit anyone else in town. It would break your mother's heart Knuckles."

"I won't sir and………………. Wait how do you know my name!"

The doc showed them his back and chuckled, "Because I'm your father."

Knuckles's eyes got very big.

Rouge glance back in forth at the two, "I suspected you two were related, I see the resemblance."

Knuckles's father turned back towards Rouge, "Name is Locke, Dr. Locke and you would be?"

"Rouge," she smiled proudly, "your new daughter-in-law," while bringing up her hand at an angle showing the ring on her fourth finger.

Knuckles suddenly stormed out of the room and house. The racket of an oak door being slammed, the screeching of a screen door, and the slamming of the jeep's door echoed in the house."Well what has gotten into him," she questioned in confusion. Rouge pursed after her future husband but popped her head in the kitchen one last time. "I hope Sosha gets to feeling better soon."

Outside in the jeep Knuckles had his arms crossed on the steering wheel with his head down. Rouge got in the passenger seat and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Honey, are you feeling alright." "No," came an angry growl. She gazed back at the house. 'Something really awful must have happened between those two.' Rouge bit her lip and tried to soothe his anger, "It's been a long day already with the flight, drive and all. Why don't we go into town and find a café to rest at and have so lunch. Hmmm?" "The echidna shuttered a sigh seeing that he was tired and hungry. The jeep's motor was fired up and quickly returned to the main road onto Kookynie.

In the house Locke watched his son leave. He peered back at his patient who slightly stirred on the counter and notice small injuries all over her. Bruises were all over her arms and a notch was cut into the tail near the tip. On her left cheek was a cut caked with mud and dried blood. These injures were not something caused by a car accident and they looked like they had been there for a couple of days. No someone had done this to her. The feet also showed suspicion. Despite the thick calluses protecting the bottom of both feet, each foot was scorched black like she had been running on the desert sand in the scorching sun for days. Locke remembered what his son had said 'We found her 20 miles out of town." What had she been doing out there all by herself, it wasn't like her.

Something strange is going on.

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Hope you enjoyed it!

Please reveiw.


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